"lame" didn't mean useless. I'm annoyed that so many manufacturers document details like that while leaving out basic info you would need to make any use of that info.

BUT, the lack of basic info was just an annoyance, not an impediment.


I was also in a hurry when I typed that post. Many Samsung TV's use the same common code set with NECx2 protocol and device 7.7, so without further research I knew it was probably that. Later I pulled up a few other Samsung files and the function numbers match the PDF file you have ONLY for Samsung models using that common NECx2 7.7 codeset and not for Samsung models using other code sets. So I'm now sure that is right.

Very few people at Samsung would know this stuff and I don't have remaining doubts about NECx2 7.7, so there is no point trying to extract that info from them.

right on, well john, i've seen you help a million others with this problem and i thank you for helping me. I'm pretty confident now so i'm gonna go ahead and give this a shot. wish me luck

ssssssssoooooooo pissed. Everything was going great. downloaded my programs, created my ccf file started checking buttons ( by the way, the whole decimal to hex thing didn't work, had to copy paste and delete till i found my codes) 155 buttons later i had my discrete on and off, component switching, and zoom preferences. told the customer....."watch me now" and was repetedly shot down by my macros. i dont get it, the button works fine, as a single button. but wouldn't work in a macro, the tv power button flashes when it recieves a command. it flashed and the tv didn't turn on!!!!! but the component switching works, i put time delays over and below, short to forever, didn't work. man i'm $200 and 10 some odd hours deep into this remote. vision blurring, feeling faint, loosing money, loosing time, loosing what little social life i had. HHHHHEEEEELLLLLPPPPP!!!!!!

There are two aspects to the timing issue: duration and delay. Either or both may be the problem when a signal works fine alone on the button, but not in a macro.

Duration is how long the signal must be continuously transmitted before the device believes it. For most commands of most devices, there is no duration issue. The shortest possible signal is enough. But some commands of some device require more duration. A discrete On command is more likely than other commands to require extra duration.

I'm an IR expert, not an MX-850 expert, so I have no clue how/whether you can control the duration of a signal in a macro in an MX-850. If that is your issue you may want to search and/or start a new thread (an expert in that question may not read this far into a thread like this).

Delay is how long AFTER the device understands a command it will be before the device is ready to understand the next command. That is the more common timing issue in a macro, but you seem to have investigated that enough to know it is not your main problem.

i think you were telling someone else that if you make the hex file from makehex and copy the code and paste it one after the other you can make kind of a double code? would that increase the duration of the flash?

I don't know whether that would actually increase the duration.

The ordinary Pronto Hex describes a single frame of the signal. When you use that in a macro, I'm pretty sure the MX-850 sends more than one frame. I don't know how many, but my guess is three.

I also don't know how it decides how many to send. Maybe it is always the same number, maybe it tries to hit a certain total duration.

If you change the Pronto Hex to hold two frames, will it send twice as many as before (six if my earlier guess of three was right)? Or will it try to hit a certain duration and send two or four (whichever is closer)? Or maybe the Universal browser detects the pattern during import and decides the doubling is a bad learn and "fixes" it back to a single frame?

If the real problem is duration, I'm sure at least five frames are required, but maybe more.

If you edit the Pronto Hex hold several frames, you'll probably hit some limit in the Universal Browser for the maximum length of a Pronto Hex string that it is able to import.

Can you just create a macro that will activate the "learned" command twice? Will that effectively increase the endurance of the signal, or will the receiving unit interpret it as two separate codes?

Usually a macro sending the command multiple times won't work because the remote adds too much delay between steps in a macro.

But I haven't tested with an MX-850 to see how much delay it adds when none is requested. It might be small enough delay to work.

I have no guess what maximum delay the Samsung would accept before deciding it is two seperate commands. Most universal remotes with a macro capability add more delay between steps in a macro than most devices will accept (as being one long command).

BTW, some OTHER protocols have additional issues that would wreck this idea of sending the command multiple times (to simulate one long press) even if there were no extra delay. THIS Samsung protocol has no such extra issues. If the remote doesn't add extra delay then sending the same command multiple times will look like one long press.